Elf and Snowman Gift Bag Templates & Tutorial

Remember when I made my frog, owl and penguin gift bags? 

See the penguin and instructions at this post!

Well, when I was in the sketching phase for that project, I drew up many more and imagined them holding different things for different occasions. Ready to see a couple Christmas sketches made up?

Cute right? You can download templates for these guys here!

For the elf cut: 1 gift box, 1 bow, 1 hat, 2 ears (1 reversed), 1 nose and 1 head in a flesh tone, 4 of the eye/button/bell template (2 in white, 2 in yellow), 2 eye centers, 2 arms (1 reversed), 2 legs (1 reversed) and 2 cuffs

For the snowman cut: 1 gift box, 1 bow, 2 buttons, 1 carrot, 2 stick arms (1 reversed), 1 head and 3 pieces of coal. 

Fold your bags down 1 1/4 inches at the top (as shown in the previous tutorial) before you start gluing so that you're sure to be able to close them later! Otherwise, I do think they would be just as cute left open and stuffed with tissue paper! 

Place the gift box 1/4 inch from the bottom of the bag and glue in place, glue the bow down in the center of the gift box and add the head so that it is just on top of the bow (I overlapped on the snowman, wasn't intentional, but glue is kind of permanent). 

Add the elf's hat using the dotted line on your template as a guide. Glue the ears behind the head so that they line up with the bottom of the hat as shown. Trace lightly around the elf's nose with a brown crayon so that it stands out from the face and glue in the center. Glue the eye whites and centers on both sides of the nose as shown. 

Glue the arms in place so that the angled edge is flush with the sides of the bag. Add the cuffs to separate the mittens from the sleeves. Glue the legs to the underside of the bag at a slight angle with the feet facing toward each other. Glue the bells to the points of the shoes. Using a black permanent marker draw nostrils, pupils, a smile and two black dots near the tops of your bells. Draw lines from your dots in an incomplete X shape using the photo as a guide. 

To make the snowman, glue the carrot so that the flat end is in the center of the head. Draw four black dots in a square shape on each of your button eyes, use an opaque gel pen to connect the dots in an X shape . Using the photo as a guide, glue the eyes in place. Place each of your three pieces of coal at a slightly different angle in a half circle shape to form the snowman's mouth. 

Glue the arms in place and you're done! I think the snowman could also be cute without the head or the gift, if you just glued his face on a white bag and glued his arms facing outward! I didn't come to that conclusion until after I had already made the complicated version, though! 

The gift box would look great paired with the penguin templates from last time (or the owl I guess, I've seen a lot of owl stuff this Christmas)! Or imagine doing the gift box in a birthday print and using the frog! These could be combined in so many cute ways!